The present disclosure relates generally to the field of industrial automation control systems. More particularly, embodiments of the present disclosure relate to an extensible energy management architecture that may provide energy management operations for various components within an industrial automation system.
Industrial automation systems are generally managed and operated using automation control and monitoring systems. A wide range of applications exist for automation control and monitoring systems, particularly in industrial automation settings. Such applications may include the powering of a wide range of actuators, such as valves, electric motors, and so forth, and the collection of data via sensors. Typical automation control and monitoring systems may include one or more components, such as programming terminals, automation controllers, input/output (I/O) modules, and/or human-machine interface (HMI) terminals.
Generally, the energy produced and used by various devices in an industrial automation system is managed by an energy management system. Conventional energy management systems for industrial automation systems are typically separate systems added to an existing infrastructure of the automation control and monitoring systems. As such, existing energy management systems are typically employed in parallel with the existing automation control and monitoring systems. Consequently, the energy management systems duplicate much of the infrastructure of the existing automation control and monitoring systems.
Although these conventional energy management systems may provide some energy management operations for the industrial automation system, these conventional energy management systems are incapable of providing efficient ways to expand the energy management system or architecture as more devices are added to the industrial automation system. Accordingly, improved systems and methods for managing the energy of an industrial automation system are desirable.